The New Kids
by pandorathexplora
Summary: Ichigo doesn't care when two new students join Karakura High School -- that is, until they try to mess with his friends. These two new characters have dark plans, and it will be up to Ichigo and the gang to stop them.


_Hi everyone! Thanks for checking out my story. It's my first Bleach fanfic (man, I've been writing for some really random genres this holiday season), but I hope you like it!_

_Disclaimer: I own nothing._

_Rated: T for language, and eventual ass-kicking. _

* * *

"Ichiiiiigooooo!" Keigo bounded towards his orange-haired friend, reaching speeds that no teenager seeking a hardened-reputation would ever dare.

Leaping high into the hallway air, Keigo opened his arms and prepared to embrace his comrade, his role-model, his partner-in-crime.

Without hesitation, Ichigo changed his stride and stepped to his left, leaving Keigo to grasp only air and fall face-first into the school's tiled floor.

"Ichi--" Keigo muttered into the floor, quickly recovering himself with a firm push-up, and rebounding into an off-kilter standing position. Dazed, but only slightly offended, Keigo continued his rant, "Ichi-Ichi-goooo! Where are you going? Did you hear? The coolest new kids are coming to our school!"

Ichigo nodded his head slightly, and Keigo took that as his cue to continue, satisfied that his conversation was actually cool enough for his friend's attention.

"They are! The new kids - all the way from Nuratossi town - two of them. Rumor is," Keigo shrunk his voice low enough that only Ichigo could hear, "they are real badasses. Leather jackets, sunglasses, and one of them has a tattoo!" At this, Ichigo nodded once more, again adding to Keigo's excitement.

"You hear that? A real tattoo!! I bet it has fire, or an eagle, or a firey eagle with flames coming out of its --"

"Oi," a deep voice interrupted the shrill youth, causing him to stumble backwards.

"Chad-ooooo!!!!" Keigo's pitch leapt two scales higher as the second, most valuable player to his team now joined them both. "Control your voice! It's too deep and I was just trying to tell Ichigo about the coolest news that everybody who is anybody is talking about!"

Silence responded.

And then, with much hesitation, "Oh."

"Oh?! That's all you can say is oh?! Do you realize --?"

"You are listening to music," Chad interrupted, glancing at Ichigo. Kurosaki, aware of the large figure beside him, looked up.

"Oh, hey, Chad," Ichigo responded, never missing a beat. "Yeah, it's good. Yo, Keigo. What are you doing here?"

At that moment, far across the world in a land surrounded by sea, a singular volcano erupted, but its power did not equal the heat and pressure that exploded from Keigo's ears.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" Keigo threw his hands towards the sky, reaching to the gods for any sign of acknowledgment, but finding none. "First off, I've been here for the past five minutes telling you the most important things regular high-school kids should be drooling to hear. And second, who realizes their friend's in the hallway for the first time and says something like that?!"

Keigo was on his knees by now, vying for a scene yet still being ignored by the passing high school girls.

"Only you, Ichigo," he cried, sudden realization coming to his eyes, "would say what are you doing here, without a hello, and you know what?" Standing proudly, he continued, "that's why you are cool enough to be my friend!"

Composed (or nearly enough for somebody like Keigo), the frantic teen quit his diatribe and scampered behind his two buddies.

"Chad-o, at least you will listen. Look, there's these two guys, coming from out of town, to our school. They are in OUR class!"

Taking both earphones out and pocketing them, Ichigo sighed and stopped in the middle of the hallway. Keigo tripped over his own feet at the sudden interruption.

"Newbies, eh?" Ichigo said, interest peaked. It felt like only a few short weeks had passed since he, himself, had been the new kid at school. Fortunately for him, he had the brawny Chad and his own growing reputation to precede him, drawing respect from his newfound peers in a newfound environment.

Still, the feeling of entering into a strange new world was a frightening one - especially for high-schoolers. To be an outsider, an anomaly, a difference in a crew of uniformity -- perhaps that is every young person's greatest fear. A man too large for his peers. The kid with the orange hair. A boy without his tribe. The fear of the outcast. Thus, it remains just that -- until one day, it is realized that the source of such distress, in all actuality, acts as the fuel.

Ichigo wouldn't tarnish his hard-earned tough reputation by throwing a welcoming party to the new kids or anything lame like that. No, he would do one greater.

"Kurosaki, are you going to help me throw them the welcoming prank party, as is our tradition to any new kids at our school?!" Keigo already was putting on a party hat, and blowing up a balloon, along with a whoopee cushion, to place on the new kids' desks to find when they entered class.

"Hell no," Ichigo barked back, scowling hard enough that Keigo's balloon popped.

"So what are you going to do?" Keigo now had streamers in his hands, while Chad scratched his head in confusion.

"Keigo, where are you getting all of these supplies --" Chad began, as they each entered the classroom.

"We have to welcome them in the ways that our ancestors taught us!" Keigo interrupted, tears streaming down his face. "Everyone knows that you must welcome new cool kids with party supplies and simultaneous pranks that illicit both hearty laughs from our peers, gratuitous blushing, and finally the eventual life-long friendships of all parties involved!!!"

The entire class had stilled, eyes on Keigo. Orihime, standing in the corner of the room with Tatsuki and unaware of the immediate silence, simply smiled and waved.    
"Hiya, Kurosaki-kun!"

Ichigo gulped. Orihime was even prettier today.

"Then what? What then?" a distant voice echoed in Ichigo's head.

"Ksa -- What?" Ichigo's eyes blurred away from the girl with orange hair and the tight white top.

"What will you do to welcome the new kids when they get here?" Keigo repeated.

No way was Ichigo going to greet the kids in such a dorky fashion as a party. He had resolved that he was going to do the next best thing to helping their reputations.

With a smug smile and stealing a sideways glance at Orihime, Ichigo stated, "Easy. Keep 'em the hell away from you."

Chad snorted.

Orihime giggled at some joke that Tatsuki whispered in her ear.

Keigo fainted.

And a large black boot stepped over the teenager's pallid body, missing his head by mere inches.

What would soon be to Keigo's dismay, the party was just about to start.

*****

"Well, well, well," the owner of the black-army boot sneered. "Looks like we got us another school full of clowns - just a bunch of fairy queens and freak-boys," he continued, nodding in Keigo's direction.

The boy, although only in high school, stood well above six feet, sporting a large black trench coat over the Karakura High School uniform. Although entering into a sophomore class, the boy looked more man than teenager, several pounds of flesh sewn tightly around his biceps and chest; his stomach, however, proved that burgers beat out sit-ups when his daily work-outs were finished.

A pair of weathered sunglasses pulled back long, greasy black locks of hair, keeping it away from his face in a temporary headband. Finishing the dark-motif, upon his cheek sat the largest, hairiest mole to ever curse a teenager's face. It seemed to cast more of a shadow than the omnipresent man-boy himself.

"What the hell are you looking at?" mole-man shouted at a pale, glasses-clad teen sitting quietly in the corner.

Ishida pushed his glasses up on his nose, too engrossed in his notes to respond.

"That's what I thought!" Mole-man whistled loudly, as one does when calling the family dog, and in a heartbeat a new body appeared beside him -- this one much smaller, but sporting a similar outfit. Complete with army boots and black sunglasses.

Mole-man raised his hands up to the sky, rested them on his sides, and satisfied with the position, he began his regal entrance.

"They call me Sakamoto Yoshi," he proclaimed, bloodshot eyes scanning the room. "This hear is my acquaintance, Kawakami Hitoshi." At once, his smaller protege saluted the captive audience, winking at Tatsuki who then hiccuped in disgust.

"Yoshi and Hitoshi?" Tatsuki inquired.

Immediately, Yoshi twitched, cocking his head to the side to find the source of the voice.

"You guys sound like bad video game characters to me," Tatsuki remarked, crossing her arms in defiance.

At this, half of the class stifled laughter. Even Ichigo laughed, albeit less stifled and more outright. He still didn't know what to make of these new characters, but part of him remained relaxed in his desk -- thoughts elsewhere.

After all, Orihime still looked really good in that shirt.

And she was pretty easy-going, too. Nothing complicated. Weird, but sweet. Kind of, like that bean-paste cake she eats.

"Well, hello there, my beautiful." A predator's voice seeped through Ichigo's thoughts, awakening him.

"Oh, ummm...hi," Orihime's voice was still soft and sweet. Innocent. If the devil himself addressed her, she would probably reply the same way.

"And what's your name, my beautiful, can I call you mine?" The big boot stepped over personal binders and on top of backpacks as if not in his path, red eyes looking where they shouldn't. He smiled to reveal a silver tongue-ring enjambed within his toothy yellow grin.

Ichigo felt his teeth lock and, somehow, the pencil he was once using to draw in the margins of his notebook had snapped in two.

Giving a half-smile, Orihime was about to reply when another voice boomed:

"It's get the fuck away from her, asswipe," Tatsuki commanded, her body suddenly appearing between the two.

Stunned by the abrupt speed of the firey brunette, Yoshi lost footing and tried to remain standing by grasping hold of the desk behind him. The desk, however, was his little friend Hitoshi, and both fell into a muddied heap of wrinkled coats and dignities.

It was enough to set the class on fire. Within seconds, every student released their nervousness with all types of laughter. The girls shrieked at the absurdity of the scene. The boys bellowed and slapped each other's backs. Passing hallway students stopped to laugh and point at the bumbling entertainment.

Chad chuckled...or coughed, while Ishida looked up to see two new students had joined the room.

Yoshi and Hitoshi had entered with the intention of setting the school aflame with their intimidation tactics. But the combination of their outward appearance and cartoonish buffoonery was no match for pack-mentality of high school. In a matter of minutes, the two had been branded exactly that which they feared and opposed the most: they were weaklings, clowns, and, finally, outcast.

While the scene unfolded, still, something stirred within Ichigo, preventing him from joining in the room's revelries.

"That voice," he whispered. That tone. The very pitch of it, belonging to the man with the boot. Like many other cackling voices in high school, Yoshi spoke quickly and loudly. Until he reached Orihime. Those words. Hungry, serpentine, and slow. Meant to be heard only by one. Those words grated against Ichigo, metal dragged against concrete.

Predators use those words like ropes. They snagged. They trapped. They hung.

My beautiful. Can I call you mine?

"Just try it," Ichigo thought. "And I will kill you."

*****

The bell rang, snapping each student awake at the end of a school day that ended uncharacteristically fast.

Yoshi and Hitoshi's desks remained empty, as the two had unsurprisingly skipped their first day of school after the morning's debacle.

Keigo, still nursing his head injury from fainting, managed the strength to invite all of his friends to his house to discuss the newest gossip around the school.

"Come on, Sado, Ichigo, everyone to my house! Can you believe that those two guys are actually such clowns?!" Keigo squealed into the bustling hallways. "And I'm not just saying that because it makes me feel cooler by comparison," he added quietly.

"Oh sorry, Keigo. I have a lot of work to do around the house," Orihime said, genuinely concerned. "But you are all welcome to stop by and become official taste-testers to my super secret concoction that I will unveil at lunch tomorrow."

Squinting her eyes and placing a stern finger to her mouth, deep in thought, Inoue continued, "But if I showed anyone the super secret recipe, I guess then it wouldn't be secret at all." Opening her eyes wide, she said, "I will call it by its original name, then, that is the Super Delicious Blue Bean and Meat Custard Recipe!"

Pleased with herself, Inoue quickened her pace and skipped ahead of the gang. "See you at my house if you want to try it!" With a giggle and a hum, she danced ahead into the street, leaving a group of stunned, teenage boys in her wake.

"She is..." Chad began, a single wide eye peering through brown hair.

Ichigo raised one hand to scratch behind his head, looking for an end to Chad's statement.

"Yeah," Ichigo finished for him, uncomfortable with where the conversation was heading. "I need to go," Ichigo said to no one in particular. "Training."

Chad nodded in understanding, while Keigo shouted something painfully pathetic in the foreground about why his friend had to train when there were no sports going on right now.

Ichigo had already turned the corner against the setting sun, down a back alley and into the overlooked shop's front yard, when the pain hit him again.

Beginning in the morning, and rising as his thoughts leaned back to the newcomers' arrivals, what had started as discomfort was morphing into a full-blown agony inside him. Like a sharp twist to the gut, the pain caused by Hitoshi's entrance felt akin to a heavy pressure all around him - not unlike the reiatsu that Ishida concluded Ichigo was so inept at sensing.

Yet, Ichigo sensed this, and it wasn't going away.

And this reiatsu, this pressure, this pain -- whatever it was -- was not so powerful to bring him to his knees. No, that was Kenpachi's style. That was a power bent on pure, unadulterated desire to fight. That reaitsu was raw.

No, this was something weaker. This was a pressure made to slither and slide, seep into your body like a poison. All sinister, cowardice, and malice combined.

And Ichigo felt powerless to combat it, unless he talked to the one soul in Kurakara that could help.

"Oi!" Ichigo pounded against the shop owner's wooden door. "Open up!" His voice consistent with the blows from his fists, Ichigo finally rested his forehead against the unrelenting door.

"Sandal-hat, open your door for fuck's sake, this is serious!" Ichigo's stomach tightened, and he felt beads of sweat form around his brow.

"Ksa, Urahara, where the fuck are you..." and with a final breath, Ichigo collapsed on the shop owner's porch, his vision tunneling around a small boy with a bat.

"Tsk, tsk...such language..." a voice echoed into his dreams.

*******  
The substitute Shinigami's black hakama swayed in the wind. Silent, still, he watched a black widow spin its web around a single, white orchid. As its webbing grew, so did its legs, like fingers that eventually picked the petals off one by one. As each petal fell, the spider's mouth gaped open larger and larger, revealing fangs that shone like silver in the moonlight.

Ichigo could see the spider grow as well, until finally it reached his own height. The monster's eyes watched hungrily as the flower's leaves fell to reveal the pollen inside. Ichigo felt his pulse quicken, anger boiling beneath the surface by the scene.

The widow pushed on, taking purposeful care of its task. When the last petal fell, a human tongue snaked out and tasted the center, while a thousand eyes stared tauntingly into Ichigo's. He could feel the burn, the pain again. He would have to destroy it. It was time.

"Ban-" Ichigo summoned the spiritual power around him, the dust of the earth rising in response. The ground shook, but the spider remained still, watching, waiting for his next move.

"My beautiful," the spider said, nonchalant, a drop of blood falling from its mouth to the pollen. "Can I call you mine?"

Fuck that.

"--kai!"

A firm hand covered Ichigo's mouth in the last second, and the orange-haired shinigami awoke to find Tessai, Urahara's faithful servant, straddling him on the floor of a now crumbling house. The walls around them vibrated and miscellaneous framed photos dropped from their mountings, while windows and mirrors shattered around them.

"WAKE UP, KURASAKI!!" Jinta shouted, threatening the bleary eyed Shinigami with a blow to his head. His bat was ready to go, in full swing position.

"You're having a dream," a meek-looking girl of about ten years old added, large eyes glued to the shaking ceiling. "You have to wake up or this house will explode...and I'll have to clean it up," she sighed, more concern stemming from future chores than their current precarious position.

Suddenly, Ichigo's eyes widened with the knowledge that burly Tessai was indeed still straddling him.

At once, the house stilled as did every voice in the room, until Ichigo found his breath.

"What the hell?! Get off me! Why would you ever think that this is the right way to wake up somebody?!"

Still too horrified to realize what was happening, Ichigo squirmed quickly out from beneath Tessai's weight only to stumble over paintings that now lay about the floor.

"What is going on? Why was he on top of me?"

"You were dreaming and were about to unleash too much reiatsu--" Ururu began to explain.

"Is he awake yet?" a calm voice interrupted from the other room.

"Hai, Kisuki, situation is under control!" Tessai stood up in full salute, awaiting orders.

A head, preceded by a striped green and white bucket hat peered from behind the door frame, eyes squinting from a satisfied grin.

"Well, good then!" Urahara said. "We'll eat, and then Ichigo, you can clean up the mess you caused afterwards. Ururu, Jinta, you help, too."

And with that, the unflappable former captain of the 12th division exited the room while whistling the chorus of what sounded like "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

************

_So what do you think so far? I've never written for an anime before, so all tips are welcome. I'll be posting more soon. Let me know what direction you'd like to see this go. I rely heavily on feedback. Thanks again for reading/reviewing!_


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